


glory and gore (go hand in hand)

by snowborn



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Breaking the Wheel, Daenerys Targaryen-centric, Episode: s08e05 The Bells, F/M, Fix-It, Gen, Grief/Mourning, I'm in Mourning, This Season Does Not Exist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-15
Updated: 2019-05-15
Packaged: 2020-03-05 20:22:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18836086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snowborn/pseuds/snowborn
Summary: now i'm in the ring, and i'm coming for blood.—jon/daenerys, daenerys-centric; fix-it for 8x05.





	glory and gore (go hand in hand)

**Author's Note:**

> hi this is my first foray into the got/asoiaf fandom but i hope you enjoy.
> 
> writing playlist includes:  
> -glory and gore by lorde  
> -yellow flicker beat by lorde  
> -bravado by lorde  
> -you should see me in a crown by billie eilish  
> -bad guy by billie eilish  
> -money power glory by lana del rey

maybe she was always destined to be misunderstood.

the thought makes her inhale sharply. smoke fills her lungs, and it should hurt but it doesn’t. in the distant glittering of the blackwater, the iron fleet burns. on the edges of the city, the parapets and the scorpions burn. the buildings and the golden company burn.

everything burns, and it is not enough. when drogon lands, she bares her teeth. when he roars, the townspeople scream. she sees that the armies have come face to face below, and it gives her pause.

the world holds its breath.

destiny has led her here, to this place where no one will ever love her, where she has nothing and no one, where she casts a shadow of fear too big to overcome. this place has given her enough grief and misery to carry for a lifetime.

it doesn’t matter how much she has lost to help them. they don’t see how much has been taken from her. every time she closes her eyes she sees her unborn son and her husband, ripped from her by the witch. she sees viserion, sinking beneath the ice in the land of always winter, and she remembers him as a baby, how long it had taken him to learn how to breathe fire in qarth. she sees rhaegal, shot down from her side, and she remembers the first time he had allowed jon snow to ride him in the north, how they had flown to that hidden waterfall, lured by the promise of freedom.

she sees ser barristan, who had faith that she would be a good queen, and she remembers how he died in an alleyway, in retribution for liberating the slaves of meereen.

she sees ser jorah, who had once said that what set her apart was her gentle heart, but all she can see is him dying in her arms amidst the smoke and ash of the long night.

she sees missandei, how the lion queen had disrespected her by placing her back in chains –

and when missandei breathes her last word, she remembers astapor. yunkai. meereen. her golden eyes and her shy smile, their hands twined together, pieces of a life once lived proudly and doggedly, with the all-encompassing hope that she could make the world better, that she could be better than her father’s legacy of tyranny.

missandei’s body falls, and she remembers.

 _you are the queen we chose_.

daenerys targaryen, first of her name. mother of dragons.

breaker of chains.

the people of westeros don’t see her as someone to love. they fear her and they vilify her; they see the sharp edges of her, the parts meant to cut, they hear of the good she has done and twist it into ugliness.

 _dragonrider_ , they whisper in awe.

 _dragon queen_ , they hiss in the same breath.

they don’t see rhaegar in her, and she mourns for the family she never knew. they don’t see rhaella in her, who had endured aerys until her dying breath, who had named her stormborn for the tempest that had raged at dragonstone the night she came into the world, and she is filled with rage.

they see aegon the conqueror. they see rhaenys and visenya.

they see her, mad king aerys’s daughter, and none of it matters.

her blood sings, and she wants to punish them.

distantly she hears them surrender, the bells echoing in the recesses of her mind, but all she can think of is everything she has lost in pursuit of the iron throne, the creation of her ancestors, the very thing that has haunted her and sought to destroy her.

she wants to raze the city to the ground. she wants to tear it apart.

she wants them to burn.

 _don’t wake the dragon_ , viserys had threatened.

gritting her teeth, she and drogon fly towards the red keep.

 _you are a dragon. be a dragon_ , olenna had said.

she would make them pay with fire and blood.

-

when drogon reaches the red keep, daenerys watches as the innocents gathered behind the gate scream and scatter at the sight of her son, balerion the dread reborn.

they are terrified, and it makes her stomach clench.

she doesn’t need to say it. drogon senses her outrage, her fear, her grief. he unleashes a torrent of dragonfire that engulfs the entirety of the red keep before he tears part of the roof away with his claws, the stone and brick crumbling and falling to the ground below.

when he lands in the throne room, daenerys slides off, shaking with barely-contained rage. in the dusty dark, the lion queen sits on the iron throne, green eyes wide and transfixed upon her son beside her, tears streaming down her face. she looks somehow younger and more aged now than she did at the dragonpit.

the clamor of footsteps approaching the great hall catches their attention. the kingslayer appears, tyrion close behind him. she quells the bitterness that threatens to pour out at the sight, at the proof that tyrion has betrayed her once again, but it doesn't matter anymore.

“cersei,” the kingslayer says raggedly, her name catching in his throat.

the lion queen looks at him and daenerys can see the grief and fear written plain on her face. this woman, who ser barristan had told her was supposed to marry rhaegar, this queen who had lost both a son and daughter to poison, who had blown up the sept of baelor and indirectly killed the only child she had left, who had played the game of thrones and won.

the things they did for power.

drogon shifts, snarling, his great tail swishing and knocking into one of the pillars holding up the rest of the roof. chunks of stone fall around them haphazardly. the lion queen flinches, then meets her eyes.

“if you have any last words, now is the time,” daenerys says, cold as the north, and it is a wonder her voice does not falter at the image of missandei in chains, even in death.

to her credit, the lion queen does not flinch. “i always thought i would feel fulfilled. i earned what men lost their lives for. i chose violence, and it brought me here, to the throne,” she responds softly. she tilts her chin up. “i have lost everything for this and i regret none of it. that oaf should have had you killed years ago.”

“maybe then the throne would still be yours,” daenerys replies. “now it belongs to no one.”

the kingslayer lets out a strangled cry, knowing full well what is coming, and he sprints from the doorway toward his sister, his first and last love. tyrion follows, screaming for him to stop.

 _dracarys_ , missandei had said.

drogon opens his maw and unleashes hell upon the ugly iron throne and the last queen to ever sit upon it. the kingslayer stumbles to his knees, his hands reaching out and falling short.

cersei lannister does not scream when she burns.

daenerys does not turn away, forcing herself to look at the smoking pile of ash and bone that used to haunt her dreams and nightmares. the kingslayer weeps, crumpled on the floor. in her periphery, ash falls from the grey haze of the sky like snow.

when she turns she meets the eyes of jon snow, covered in dirt and soot. grey worm appears beside him, face weary.

“it is over,” she intones, retreating into her mind, and she intends to leave this cursed place with drogon and never look back, but jon approaches.

“my queen,” he kneels, and bile rises in her throat.

“stand,” she hisses. “i am no queen. westeros is no land of mine.”

“dany,” he pleads gently. he stands, reaching out and catching her in his arms. he calls her as no one else has and it pierces her heart, it makes her sick and it makes her want to cry. the only man to love her and break her, and she cannot bear to be near him. and yet, as she leans into the familiar scent of leather and sweat and smoke, she is as close to peace as she has ever been.

“king’s landing is yours,” she says, swallowing the tears that threaten to choke her. “do with it what you will. i never want to see this place again.”

“please, dany, you know i don’t—,” he begs, and her heart twists. “i’m sorry.”

“daenerys,” tyrion speaks, face twisting like he might cry, “please, my queen. the wheel – ”

“is broken,” she says, resolute. “they are free.” she looks at grey worm, sees the tumult in his eyes, and her heart hurts for everything they have lost. she nods sharply at him, and he returns it. turning on his heel, he leaves the hall to carry out the orders she had given him the night before – _when all is done, send them home. let them go. set them free_.

no one tries to stop her when she climbs onto drogon, and she takes in the hall one last time, the faces of jon and tyrion and jaime lannister contorted in pain at the aftermath of the destruction she has wrought.

 _breaker of chains. breaker of chains. breaker of chains_.

when drogon takes to the skies, she does not look back.

-

she does not direct drogon as they fly. the wind is cold, biting at her cheeks and tugging at her hair. clutching his spikes, she rests her cheek on his scales and trusts that he will take her far from here, to a place where they will be safe.

she cannot imagine where that could be.

the lands of always winter are a constant reminder of losing viserion, and the north is not a friendly place. she is not welcome in westeros, and she does not want it. she thinks of slaver’s bay, but going back to meereen permanently would mean becoming queen, and daenerys is exhausted.

the one thing she has always wanted – the one thing she has forced herself to cast aside in favor of the iron throne time and time again – was the house with the red door in braavos, with lemon trees in the yard and cherished memories of a childhood full of love and freedom, before everything had turned bleak and sour. the one thing that represented security and family and home to her. the one thing she had always dreamed of but never thought she would have.

it is here, at her fingertips. without the pressure of being a queen, she could be whoever she wants to be. and she doesn’t know what that means for her. history has always reminded her that she toes the line between madness and greatness, that she is predisposed to becoming like her father though she has actively worked against his memory all her life.

so she collected titles like coins, cloaking herself with her victories. all of her titles speak for themselves, each one of them earned, each one a step towards westeros and the iron throne. the farther away she gets, the lighter she feels.

she is tired of hiding behind daenerys targaryen. she has only ever been daenerys stormborn, with the legacy of her family thrust upon her.

the closest she had ever felt to normal was in that boat with jon snow, where she was just dany and not queen daenerys targaryen, where he was just jon and not king in the north, where they were two young people in love without the world bearing down upon them.

who is she without the throne? 

drogon dives sharply, dipping to graze the water with his wing, and she reasons that it’s okay that she does not know who to be anymore.

she has all the time in the world to figure it out.

 

**Author's Note:**

> dany stan til i die tbh. RIP to my girl's arc bc d&d fucked up lmao.
> 
> i know i haven't posted anything in a while but within the past half a year i took a serious nosedive into the got/asoiaf fandom so here i am with a simple dany-centric fic, please take this from my hands, i am in mourning over this whole season and i am about to write out my grief


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